• • •
The 1967 expansion was always about television. And the league’s deal with CBS called for two teams in California. Their number-one target was, unsurprisingly, Los Angeles. San Francisco was the next obvious choice. That expansion team went to Barry Van Gerbig, godson of the famous crooner and movie star Bing Crosby. A year earlier Barry had partnered with Crosby, his brother Mickey, and fifty other investors to buy the WHL’s San Francisco Seals, who were supposed to play out of a brand-new rink to be built when the NHL rejected the Cow Palace as a venue (though the San Jose Sharks would play there decades later). But the rink was never built, and it was decided that the Seals’ home ice would be across the bay in the Oakland–Alameda County Coliseum. The Seals relocated before they ever played.
The Seals also had trouble selling tickets—there were games where the players themselves might have thirty tickets they couldn’t give away. Bing Crosby and his famous friends tried to help them out. Peanuts creator Charles Schulz even made a couple of program covers for them. In fact, Schulz went so far as to give Snoopy a number 9 hockey sweater in his comic strip in honor of his friend and favorite Seals player, Bill Hicke. (Schulz and Hicke would later open a hockey school together in Santa Rosa, California.)
Still, Barry Van Gerbig and the investors were losing money. They wanted to sell the team to Vancouver, but the league wouldn’t let them. Jerry Seltzer, who owned the original Roller Derby League, put in a great offer, but the NHL owners didn’t like his association with roller derby, not to mention his long hair and flashy clothes. Then Charles O. Finley, the owner of Major League Baseball’s Oakland A’s, met with Bruce Norris and Bill Wirtz in 1970 and convinced them to sell to him instead.
But the organization had its share of respected hockey people, particularly coach Bert Olmstead. Bert had played on the number-one line with Elmer Lach and Maurice Richard in Montreal, and was known as a mucker. When he played with Jean Béliveau and Boom Boom Geoffrion, he told Béliveau to stay out of the corners—he’d dig out the puck instead and send it to the last place he’d seen him standing. Olmstead always seemed to find Béliveau’s stick, and when he didn’t, he’d chew him out on the bench for moving. Olmstead played in a Stanley Cup final an amazing eleven out of his fourteen seasons in the league. He pushed his players hard. Eddie Dorohoy, a tough little center, once said, “If Bert Olmstead was Santa Claus, there wouldn’t be any Christmas.”
Bill Torrey was hired as general manager, and would go on to help the Seals gain a playoff berth in their second season, 1968–69, and again in 1969–70. But he didn’t see eye to eye with new Seals owner Charlie Finley.
Finley had all kinds of ideas that didn’t work for hockey. One of those ideas was white skates. After training camp, the trainer came into the locker room and announced to the team, “We’ve got a great surprise for you guys.” In their stalls were white skates. Now, there were quite a few old-school players on the Seals, senior guys like Harry Howell, Earl Ingarfield, Bill Hicke, and Gerry Ehman. Howell shook his head and said, “I am not going to wear white skates! Those are figure skates.”
Bill Torrey had warned Finley. He’d said, “Charlie, hockey players don’t wear white skates.” Finley had replied, “Well, they might if they work for me.”
When the team later played an exhibition game up in Sudbury, Ontario, Finley showed up with no advance notice. Halfway through the first period, Torrey, who was up in the press box, got a note: Mr. Finley was downstairs waiting to see him.
Torrey went down and said, “Charlie, I didn’t know you were coming.”
Finley said, “Where’s the white skates I sent you? Nobody’s wearing them.”
“No, they’re not.”
Finley said, “Well, I didn’t come all the way from Chicago not to see somebody wearing white skates, so you’d better go and tell them.”
At the end of the first period, Torrey found coach Freddie Glover and said, “Go in there and tell the boys that the boss is here and that somebody better come out in white skates.”
Glover said, “You go in there and tell them.”
So Torrey went in. “Gentlemen, the man who signs your checks is outside and he wants one of you to put on those white skates.” There was dead silence in the locker room. No volunteers. So Torrey walked around the room and said, “I guess you didn’t hear me. I said the man who signs your checks wants someone in here to wear the white skates.” He walked out of the room and waited in the hallway. A few minutes later, left-winger Gary Jarrett came out wearing the skates. After the game Torrey found Finley and said, “Well, Charlie, how did you like those white skates?”
Finley said, “I didn’t like them. They didn’t look good on the white ice.” And so he got CCM to make up skates in Seals’ colors—kelly green, wedding gown white, and California gold. And actually, other teams then followed suit. Toronto had blue skates made and the Detroit Red Wings came up with red skates with a white toe. The trouble was that when pucks or sticks hit the skates they made black marks, so it became a real nightmare for all the trainers. After about a year, colored skates kind of disappeared.
Another time, Finley decided that he wanted a live seal for a mascot. He instructed Bill Torrey to find one, saying, “I think fans would really like that.”
Torrey said, “If that’s what you want, let’s see what we can do.”
Torrey’s management team had a hard time locating one. But a couple of weeks before the start of training camp, his PR guy came in and said, “I found a seal at a sea park. Its trainer will bring it over for $500.”
Torrey said, “As long as he’s alive and flaps. Anything to satisfy Charlie.”
On the opening night of the season, right before the anthem singer stepped onto the ice, a guy came out from the Zamboni entrance with his seal waddling behind on a leash. The seal got to center ice, barked and flapped his flippers for a few minutes, and then suddenly decided to lie down on the nice, cool ice. After that it never moved. The PR guy, with the help of the ice crew, dragged it off the ice.
Finley came by the dressing room and remarked, “That looked like a dead seal.”
Torrey said, “Charlie, we had no way of testing him.”
“Well, how much are we paying the trainer?”
Torrey said, “I think it’s $500.”
“Give him $250 and tell him to get the hell out of the building.”
Torrey was also forced to spend hours and hours designing team uniforms and brochures. Worse still, despite a clause in Torrey’s contract that no player could be traded or moved without his agreement, Finley interfered with the running of the club. In 1970, he wanted Torrey to make a player-and-money trade with the Rangers.
Torrey said, “Charlie, I wouldn’t be a good general manager if I agreed to that. It’ll hurt our team.”
Finley told him to make the deal and gave him a forty-eight-hour deadline. Torrey ignored it, and Finley fired him. Torrey sued and won. He left the team and accepted an offer from another expansion team, the New York Islanders. Today, Torrey is special adviser to the general manager and alternate governor of the Florida Panthers.
• • •
Charlie Finley was also notorious for not paying his players what they were worth. In 1970–71, his first year with the Seals, Ernie Hicke scored twenty-two goals and had twenty-five assists. Dennis Hextall, his centerman before he was traded to Minnesota, scored twenty-one goals and recorded thirty-one assists. That summer, Finley started negotiating with Hicke. As a rookie, Hicke had made $10,000 his first year. Finley offered him a $1,000 raise. Hicke called Dennis Hextall and found out that he was making thousands more.
So when Finley called back and said, “Ernie, how are you doing? Have you thought about my offer?” Hicke said, “Yeah, Charlie. Yeah, I’ve thought about your offer. I’m not gonna accept it.”
“Why not?”
Hicke said, “Wel
l, Hextall was on our team last year. I scored more goals than he did and he’s getting $55,000 and you wanna give me $11,000?”
Finley said, “Well, the only thing you can do, Ernie, is you can go to arbitration in Montreal. I’ll be there and so will NHL president Clarence Campbell, and he won’t give you another dime. In fact, you’ll lose $1,000 because you’ve got to pay for your flight there, your hotel, and your meals.”
Hicke flew to Montreal and went in and for the next hour or so he made his case to Clarence Campbell. Campbell listened and then said, “I don’t even really have to wait on this. You’re getting what Finley offered you.”
Hicke said, “What? Are you kidding me?”
Campbell said, “Nope, that’s it. End of conversation, end of meeting, we’ll see you at training camp.”
The next season, 1971–72, the Seals had a completely a different team—all great young players like goalie Gilles Meloche, Joey Johnston, Carol Vadnais, Gerry Pinder, Paul Shmyr, and Bobby Sheehan. Only four guys on the team were over twenty-five. Garry Young came in as the GM and Vic Stasiuk was the coach. The team played really well. And Finley would sometimes go on road trips with them.
In October 1971, Meloche stopped tons of shots and the team beat Boston 2–0. Finley came into the dressing room and said, “Okay, we’re going to New York tomorrow because I’m gonna take you to Gucci. I want to buy each of you a nice pair of Italian shoes.”
Later they played the Rangers and beat them 2–1, and again Finley came into the dressing room. “Unbelievable, guys. The limos will be there tomorrow morning. We’re going to the Burlington Factory. Everybody gets a trench coat.”
You never knew with Finley. For Christmas that same year all the wives were given recycled pendants that were inscribed “Oakland A’s, World Champions 1970.”
• • •
When the WHA started up in 1972, most of Finley’s players jumped over, and so the nucleus of that team was gone. The WHA was offering much more money. Dennis Sobchuk, a junior star with the Regina Pats who was drafted eighty-ninth overall by Philadelphia in 1974, made a million dollars when he went to the Cincinnati Stingers in 1975.
The same thing happened to the Oakland Athletics in baseball. Finley lost his top hitter, Reggie Jackson, and future Hall of Fame pitchers Catfish Hunter and Rollie Fingers. Reggie Jackson led the league in home runs and hitting, but Finley didn’t care. His attitude was, “Go to New York. I’ll get some other players.”
In 1973–74 the Seals ended the season 13–55–10. The NHL stepped in and bought the team from Finley. The team was a drain on league finances until they were sold to San Francisco hotel owner Mel Swig, who moved them to Cleveland in 1976–77. They were called the Barons and lasted just two seasons before they were folded into the Minnesota North Stars.
But that is not to say that hockey had no place in the Bay Area. The San Jose Sharks have one of the loudest rinks in the league today. The same can be said for Minneapolis–St. Paul, which lost a team, then got one back. Or Denver. Or Winnipeg for that matter. When a team goes under, people say the problem is the market. But that is not necessarily the case. Often, when we say that one market is better than another, what we mean is that one team is better than another. No one wants to see their home team get embarrassed every night. Eventually, they are going to stop coming. If the Seals had been on a level playing field with more established franchises, they probably wouldn’t have left in the 1970s. Maybe the same can be said for the Cleveland Barons and the Kansas City Scouts. If teams have the right support from the league, and if they do the right things to reach out to their communities through charities and youth hockey programs, I don’t see why hockey shouldn’t thrive anywhere sports are played.
Twenty-Two
THE PITTSBURGH PENGUINS
My father was a big believer in education. He hated the idea of his kids missing school for any reason. But in early September, he would let me miss one day a week.
That was when the Pittsburgh Penguins would be holding their training camp in my hometown of Brantford, Ontario. For four or five hours a day, I would be in the stands, just amazed at how big the players were, and how fast. What may have made the strongest impression was how incredibly hard they worked. No one was standing around out there. They were going flat out the whole time. The other thing I thought was, “That looks like a lot of fun.”
One year when I was in peewee, I scored 400 goals, which was also pretty fun. Somehow, the Penguins heard about it and I was invited into their dressing room the next September. There were about fifteen guys in the room, all sweaty and doing pushups and tossing around medicine balls and things. I was a shy kid, and a little bit intimidated by all these huge guys in matching sweat suits. But then one of the more intimidating guys came over to shake my hand and take me around the room to introduce his teammates. His name was Glen Sather.
Of course, I would learn a lot from Glen over the years, but the first lesson came the first time we met. It meant so much to me that he would go out of his way to welcome a nervous kid, and I never forgot it. For my whole career, unless I’d had the worst day of my life, I always took time to talk to the kids who just wanted to meet some of their heroes.
• • •
When they first looked at expansion, the NHL decided to add not only two West Coast teams but also two from the Midwest and two from the East. Buffalo and Pittsburgh were competing for the latter, but Pittsburgh had the inside track. Pennsylvania senator Jack McGregor, who represented twenty-one investors, called on his friend Art Rooney, the owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers. McGregor offered him a minority ownership in the Penguins and then asked him to make a call to the Norris brothers, who owned the Wings and Black Hawks. Rooney got them to swing the vote Pittsburgh’s way.
Once they got the franchise, McGregor hired Jack Riley, a well-respected former minor pro player, to be GM. The owners told Riley to follow a “win now” approach and draft proven players, not rookies. Riley hired ex–Rangers coach Red Sullivan, and over the next couple of years they secured a number of former Rangers.
The most famous of them by far was Andy Bathgate, who had played ten years in New York and had actually tied Bobby Hull in the scoring race in 1961–62. He also won a Cup with the Leafs. The Penguins also picked up ex–Ranger Bryan Hextall (father of goaltender Ron Hextall) in 1969. His father, Bryan Hextall Sr., had been one of the top Rangers in the late 1930s and 40s and is a member of the Hockey Hall of Fame. Bryan Jr. was a hothead and would jump in to protect his teammates. That may be a family trait. I don’t think anyone who ever played against Ron thought he was the kind of guy who would shy away from confrontation. If you spent too long near Hextall’s crease, you’d have bruises on the back of your legs to show for it.
• • •
By 1973–74 Pittsburgh was building by getting skilled players in the draft, but one of their main problems was toughness. Now, they did have some agitators who would stand up for the team, guys like Bugsy Watson, who was one of the toughest guys in the league, pound for pound. (Seven years earlier, when he was with Detroit, he shut Bobby Hull down in the playoffs—not a job for the faint of heart.) And yet, in an era where Philadelphia had the Broad Street Bullies, St. Louis had the Plager brothers and Steve Durbano, and Boston had the Big Bad Bruins, the Penguins were getting pushed around.
So, in the late 1970s and early 80s, Pittsburgh brought in more toughness. During that era, and in my era too, the tough guy had a role. He was part of the makeup of a solid team. You had your offensive guys and your defensive guys and you had a couple of tough guys.
There was a guy named Kim Clackson who played for a number of different teams and ended up in Pittsburgh in 1979–80. He looked like a choirboy, but he was the only guy who ever scared me in hockey. At 5’10” and 195 pounds, he wasn’t exactly a beast, but he was mean.
Kim wasn’t afraid of anyone. He wouldn’t try to fight me, but
he would try to run me. To him, it was like scoring goals. I always knew who was on the ice and where they were. I also liked to stand opposite the opposition bench—that way I could count everyone in front of me. And in Kim’s case, I wanted to make sure I knew where he was at all times. That’s paying him a compliment—guys like that get paid to make you think about them.
Clackson used to eat at a place called Alexander Graham Bell’s in Market Square in downtown Pittsburgh. The bar manager there was a guy named Ho Hum, a Vietnamese immigrant. Clackson gave him tickets to watch us, the Oilers, play the Penguins on January 19, 1980. It was Ho Hum’s first hockey game and he was sitting two rows behind our bench. In the middle of the second period, we dumped the puck into their corner and I came up to forecheck. Their goaltender, Rob Holland, was covering up the puck and Kim was in front.
Kim accidentally high-sticked me as I came in and clipped me across the forehead. I was a little bit shaken up and stayed on the ice for a moment or two, so the Edmonton trainer came out to see how I was doing. Now, usually a player will escort the trainer over so that he doesn’t slip on the ice. That night, a couple of my teammates left the bench, and one of them was Dave Semenko. It was already a chippy game, and Dave was never very forgiving about guys taking liberties. It wasn’t long before he and Clackson dropped their gloves. Dave was throwing bombs and had Clackson on his knees, but Clackson wasn’t backing down.
Somehow the linesmen got them apart and into the penalty box, but they weren’t done. Both guys had plenty more to say, and finally Dave had enough. The benches had cleared by this point and even the goalies were squared off, and no one was watching the penalty box. Suddenly Dave swings his leg over the boards and goes at Clackson. The funny thing was, standing in the box, a few inches above the ice, those extra few inches made Clackson seem as tall as Dave. They threw a few punches while Clackson was still in the box, then he jumped back out on the ice and they started throwing again. The linesmen separated them—and Clackson got free yet again, and the two renewed hostilities.
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